When the main character dies…

When the main character dies in a book, you know the series has come to an end! The same can be said for TV series, when the main character is on death’s door we know that he or she will pull through, after-all how would a show named House, for instance, continue if the character House were to die or move away?

I’m reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol right now and, (spoiler alert!) was assuming that Robert Langdon who was about to drown would, as per the rules, escape at just the last moment, but…he died! I immediately assumed that this will be the last book with this character. Later his character continued in the story in the form of a disembodied mind and I have reason to suspect that it may later turn out that his body will reenter the scene. Why are they not following the rules? Where did this idea of being dead and then showing up later alive come from?

Obviously, the greatest example of death not being final is the Good News of Jesus, who was dead and in the grave for three days, and then was alive again! Through the sacrifice and resurrection Jesus put an end to the power of death over those who believed in him. There are other resurrections in the Bible; Lazarus was in the grave, but came back to life, the widow’s son was being carried out-of-town for burial and then was alive, the centurion’s little girl died and the mourners were wailing and then Jesus woke her and told her mother to feed her.

In the show Dallas, JR died and was absent from the series for a whole season, but it turned out that it was all a dream. The final book of the Harry Potter series involves the death of Harry, but it turns out not to be permanent. Are these all examples of the art of imitation, or imitation in art? I don’t think you can really consider JR to have been a Christ figure, well you might but I don’t. I do believe the parallel has been suggested with Harry Potter who throughout the whole series fought Lord Voldmort the force of evil and then it ends up that they have to both die in order to end the issue before one of them could be alive.

What is important, of course, is that you and I don’t need to fear death of our earthly bodies. If we believe in God and accept Jesus as our Saviour we will not die, but have eternal life.